God is a character from a book called The Bible.
The Bible claims to be true, so it's assumed that God is a person, not meerly a character from the book.
Though the Bible has been proven to mainly falsehoods. Therefore it is not true as it claims to be. If The Bible is actually fictional and The Bible is where the character God is from, then that means that God is also fictional.

God is NOT, (only) a character from the bible. Your premise is false. Thus your conclusion is false.
Your assumption of the "person-hood" is also false.
Re the "falseness" , (fictionality) of the bible - see my prior questions re "validity". Validity IS a 21st Century concept.

Insufferable know-it-all. It is objectively immoral to kill innocent babies. Please stick to the guilty babies.

God is a character from a book called The Bible.
The Bible claims to be true, so it's assumed that God is a person, not meerly a character from the book.
Though the Bible has been proven to mainly falsehoods. Therefore it is not true as it claims to be. If The Bible is actually fictional and The Bible is where the character God is from, then that means that God is also fictional.

God is NOT, (only) a character from the bible. Your premise is false. Thus your conclusion is false.
Your assumption of the "person-hood" is also false.
Re the "falseness" , (fictionality) of the bible - see my prior questions re "validity". Validity IS a 21st Century concept.

I think it is important to note that you type a lot but don't say much. You continue to rehash the same arguments. We live in the 21st century and it is this frame of reference that we scrutinize and study everything, including the bible and any other piece of history. We cannot warp back in time to evaluate the bible from 1,000 a.d. nor can we reevaluate Hitler from 1926. We use the information and tools available to us now to discuss and scrutinize the past. The same is done for anything in science. Darwin was brilliant but did not get it all correct. Newton was brilliant but also bought into alchemy. The bible was a collection of legends and lore when it was written and was as real to the people who read it as the the news is to people who watch it today. So. To them god was a real character, the flood was an actual event and the bible was infallible. Today we have no demonstrable proof of god, we can show 'the flood' to be a localized regional event and in demonstrating these things we prove the bible to be fallible. Your argument against using validity and truth as points work both ways, since we can't take our arguments back in time. And if we could they would not believe them anyway.

God is a character from a book called The Bible.
The Bible claims to be true, so it's assumed that God is a person, not meerly a character from the book.
Though the Bible has been proven to mainly falsehoods. Therefore it is not true as it claims to be. If The Bible is actually fictional and The Bible is where the character God is from, then that means that God is also fictional.

God is NOT, (only) a character from the bible. Your premise is false. Thus your conclusion is false.
Your assumption of the "person-hood" is also false.
Re the "falseness" , (fictionality) of the bible - see my prior questions re "validity". Validity IS a 21st Century concept.

I think it is important to note that you type a lot but don't say much. You continue to rehash the same arguments. We live in the 21st century and it is this frame of reference that we scrutinize and study everything, including the bible and any other piece of history. We cannot warp back in time to evaluate the bible from 1,000 a.d. nor can we reevaluate Hitler from 1926. We use the information and tools available to us now to discuss and scrutinize the past. The same is done for anything in science. Darwin was brilliant but did not get it all correct. Newton was brilliant but also bought into alchemy. The bible was a collection of legends and lore when it was written and was as real to the people who read it as the the news is to people who watch it today. So. To them god was a real character, the flood was an actual event and the bible was infallible. Today we have no demonstrable proof of god, we can show 'the flood' to be a localized regional event and in demonstrating these things we prove the bible to be fallible. Your argument against using validity and truth as points work both ways, since we can't take our arguments back in time. And if we could they would not believe them anyway.

I think what Bucky Ball is trying to say, and correct me if I am wrong, is that god wasn't invented with the Bible, the way Captan Ahab was invented with "Moby Dick". The concept of a god (or gods) predates recorded history. On the other hand, the Christian god is definitely entirely and completely based on the ideas of the founders of the Christian religion, some of which are now part of what we call "Bible".

English is not my first language. If you think I am being mean, ask me. It could be just a wording problem.

I've reread your arguments a few times just to make sure others weren't being unfair, but it really does seem like you're just arguing for the sake of arguing (which isn't always a bad thing). You're down to purest abstract assertions. The Bible was written by words and how can we really trust words? Can we really call something false? We don't have the context to judge something in previous times. If we can't trust the very means of our communication and if definitions of words such as false, valid, fiction are so tenuous that they collapse with time or application then we really can't "know" anything about anything, and having any discussion ever is futile and fruitless.

(27-07-2011 04:01 AM)Bucky Ball Wrote: The "Christian god" is ONE of the characters, (and depending which text you are are talking about, had different names and characteristics), IN the Bible. IT, originally, WAS the Hebrew god, which had developed from many sources. If you choose to look at one particular temporal slice, for example the slice where that concept had evolved, up to the time of one of the apocalyptic preachers, (Yeshua), whose followers thought (he) had something unique to say about certain things, and say THAT slice represented THE Hebrew god, I think you may have a LOT more work to do here. It was also, secondary to the cultural cross-currents of the time, at any given moment, a dynamic and evolving concept, (Greek Gnostic influence, Roman cultural overlay). The concepts of that deity existed apart from, (not just in), the Bible, and by the year, (strictly for argument's sake), 5BCE, was NOT the same as say, 700 BCE, or 1500 BCE, both important periods in the development of the texts in question.

The Bible outlines the attributes, character, and desires of the Judeo-Christian deity who calls himself Jehovah. This deity says and does things that can evaluated by our moral standards and historical records. We can do such 2000 years later because this deity is ascribed as possessing absolute morality, which by definition should be timeless and independent of demographic influence. The supernatural events that are described as proving the nature of said deity can be evaluated and tested for historical accuracy.

Yes. Yes it does. They may have held false ideas which they claimed to be truths about things such as gravity, but that doesn't change the fact that there was an objective truth to be found.

Quote:If it was intended as "wisdom" or mythology, does that even make sense ? (Do we say the Illiad and the Odyssey are "false" ?)

Yes, we do. No respected historian anywhere believes that an immortal man named Achilles who could only be killed by cutting his ankle ever existed. The works are fiction, which is why they aren't found in the History section of the library.

Quote:Does that mean it is inauthentic ? What does "not true" mean ? Does "not true" for a pre-scientific writer mean the same thing as it does for someone with a 2011 worldview ?

You are truly just stressing semantics here. True and untrue are objective constants. They don't change based on the opinions of the majority. Consider computer programming. You have 0's and 1's. Either something Is or something Is Not. Just because all the programmers think that a particular 1 is a 0 doesn't change the fact that it has always been a 0.

(26-07-2011 09:41 PM)Cetaceaphile Wrote: If The Bible is actually fictional and The Bible is where the character God is from, then that means that God is also fictional.

Quote:Is "fiction" (ie non-fact) not a 2011 conceptual overlay onto a text from a culture which surely had no such words, (either "fact" or "fiction"), or concepts ?

Fiction. Did the historical events described in the text ever actually occur? No? Then this book contains information that is not cohesive to the events of reality, i.e. this book contains historically false information; this book is fiction. And while proving events of a book false does not necessarily prove the book's coinciding characters' existence false, in the case of the Bible, it's the only presented evidence that we have to make our decisions about the nature of the titled "God" character.

I'm really struggling to see where you're going with this.

"Ain't got no last words to say, yellow streak right up my spine. The gun in my mouth was real and the taste blew my mind."

"We see you cry. We turn your head. Then we slap your face. We see you try. We see you fail. Some things never change."

God is a character from a book called The Bible.
The Bible claims to be true, so it's assumed that God is a person, not meerly a character from the book.
Though the Bible has been proven to mainly falsehoods. Therefore it is not true as it claims to be. If The Bible is actually fictional and The Bible is where the character God is from, then that means that God is also fictional.

God is NOT, (only) a character from the bible. Your premise is false. Thus your conclusion is false.
Your assumption of the "person-hood" is also false.
Re the "falseness" , (fictionality) of the bible - see my prior questions re "validity". Validity IS a 21st Century concept.

I think it is important to note that you type a lot but don't say much. You continue to rehash the same arguments. We live in the 21st century and it is this frame of reference that we scrutinize and study everything, including the bible and any other piece of history. We cannot warp back in time to evaluate the bible from 1,000 a.d. nor can we reevaluate Hitler from 1926. We use the information and tools available to us now to discuss and scrutinize the past. The same is done for anything in science. Darwin was brilliant but did not get it all correct. Newton was brilliant but also bought into alchemy. The bible was a collection of legends and lore when it was written and was as real to the people who read it as the the news is to people who watch it today. So. To them god was a real character, the flood was an actual event and the bible was infallible. Today we have no demonstrable proof of god, we can show 'the flood' to be a localized regional event and in demonstrating these things we prove the bible to be fallible. Your argument against using validity and truth as points work both ways, since we can't take our arguments back in time. And if we could they would not believe them anyway.

I get the AD Hominem....I will again ignore it.

"The bible was a collection of legends and lore when it was written and was as real to the people who read it as the the news is to people who watch it today."
---- You SAY that, but offer no evidence for that. Maybe it wasn't. If it WAS "mythology", then you are wrong. (Which is why I suggested to you we don't try to refute Greek mythology. )

---- I typed a LOT less than you just did, (in my post about the premise being wrong), and you still didn't address the problem of your premise. (Obviously you have never studied other cultures and/or ancient texts in their cultural contexts, and thus can't see the flaw in your reasoning). You CANNOT read a text with a 1500 BC worldview, and slap on top of it a 21 Century AD worldview, and expect to make a reasoned argument about the subject matter at hand, or ASSUME you are talking about the SAME concepts as you ASSUME they were talking about. You're arguing the SAME thing as the fundies do, saying all we have to do is read the bible, and not ABOUT the bible.

You keep saying that to them the bible was "infallible". What was the ancient Hebrew/Syriac/Aramaic word(s) for "infallible" ? Ex. there are 2 distinctly different creation stories in Genesis. Do you really think they didn't notice that ? Or that Moses supposedly wrote the Pentateuch, but died before it ended ? They did NOT consider it "infallible", because THAT would never have occurred to them.

"Darwin was brilliant but did not get it all correct. Newton was brilliant but also bought into alchemy"
---- Not sure what that has to do with this argument, but I can do that too. Einstein said "God doesn't play dice", and lost the argument. Whatever. I AM an atheist, no doubt, but given your ignorance of the bible, and/or obviously any other ancient Near Eastern texts,and then you trying to assert what it says or does not say, does not help our cause.

(28-07-2011 02:23 PM)Buddy Christ Wrote: @Bucky

I've reread your arguments a few times just to make sure others weren't being unfair, but it really does seem like you're just arguing for the sake of arguing (which isn't always a bad thing). You're down to purest abstract assertions. The Bible was written by words and how can we really trust words? Can we really call something false? We don't have the context to judge something in previous times. If we can't trust the very means of our communication and if definitions of words such as false, valid, fiction are so tenuous that they collapse with time or application then we really can't "know" anything about anything, and having any discussion ever is futile and fruitless.

(27-07-2011 04:01 AM)Bucky Ball Wrote: The "Christian god" is ONE of the characters, (and depending which text you are are talking about, had different names and characteristics), IN the Bible. IT, originally, WAS the Hebrew god, which had developed from many sources. If you choose to look at one particular temporal slice, for example the slice where that concept had evolved, up to the time of one of the apocalyptic preachers, (Yeshua), whose followers thought (he) had something unique to say about certain things, and say THAT slice represented THE Hebrew god, I think you may have a LOT more work to do here. It was also, secondary to the cultural cross-currents of the time, at any given moment, a dynamic and evolving concept, (Greek Gnostic influence, Roman cultural overlay). The concepts of that deity existed apart from, (not just in), the Bible, and by the year, (strictly for argument's sake), 5BCE, was NOT the same as say, 700 BCE, or 1500 BCE, both important periods in the development of the texts in question.

The Bible outlines the attributes, character, and desires of the Judeo-Christian deity who calls himself Jehovah. This deity says and does things that can evaluated by our moral standards and historical records. We can do such 2000 years later because this deity is ascribed as possessing absolute morality, which by definition should be timeless and independent of demographic influence. The supernatural events that are described as proving the nature of said deity can be evaluated and tested for historical accuracy.

Yes. Yes it does. They may have held false ideas which they claimed to be truths about things such as gravity, but that doesn't change the fact that there was an objective truth to be found.

Quote:If it was intended as "wisdom" or mythology, does that even make sense ? (Do we say the Illiad and the Odyssey are "false" ?)

Yes, we do. No respected historian anywhere believes that an immortal man named Achilles who could only be killed by cutting his ankle ever existed. The works are fiction, which is why they aren't found in the History section of the library.

Quote:Does that mean it is inauthentic ? What does "not true" mean ? Does "not true" for a pre-scientific writer mean the same thing as it does for someone with a 2011 worldview ?

You are truly just stressing semantics here. True and untrue are objective constants. They don't change based on the opinions of the majority. Consider computer programming. You have 0's and 1's. Either something Is or something Is Not. Just because all the programmers think that a particular 1 is a 0 doesn't change the fact that it has always been a 0.

(26-07-2011 09:41 PM)Cetaceaphile Wrote: If The Bible is actually fictional and The Bible is where the character God is from, then that means that God is also fictional.

Quote:Is "fiction" (ie non-fact) not a 2011 conceptual overlay onto a text from a culture which surely had no such words, (either "fact" or "fiction"), or concepts ?

Fiction. Did the historical events described in the text ever actually occur? No? Then this book contains information that is not cohesive to the events of reality, i.e. this book contains historically false information; this book is fiction. And while proving events of a book false does not necessarily prove the book's coinciding characters' existence false, in the case of the Bible, it's the only presented evidence that we have to make our decisions about the nature of the titled "God" character.

I'm really struggling to see where you're going with this.

I'm saying if it was "mythology", the question of "fiction" is irrelevant.
(If it was intended as "wisdom" or mythology, does that even make sense ? (Do we say the Illiad and the Odyssey are "false" ?)

"Yes, we do. No respected historian anywhere believes that an immortal man named Achilles who could only be killed by cutting his ankle ever existed. The works are fiction, which is why they aren't found in the History section of the library."

They are found in the section of Greek MYTHOLOGY, not "fiction". Of course they are NOT historical. That does not mean they have no meaning.

But I'm going nowhere with this. The end.

Insufferable know-it-all. It is objectively immoral to kill innocent babies. Please stick to the guilty babies.

(28-07-2011 07:01 PM)Bucky Ball Wrote: "The bible was a collection of legends and lore when it was written and was as real to the people who read it as the the news is to people who watch it today."
---- You SAY that, but offer no evidence for that. Maybe it wasn't. If it WAS "mythology", then you are wrong. (Which is why I suggested to you we don't try to refute Greek mythology. )

While I am sure there were people who doubted the lore of old (let's not forget that what we call "Bible" is just the written collection of oral tradition passed down for generations), it's fairly safe to say the people at the time on average believed their religions. If you think for example about the history of Jews, it's pretty obvious that they did in fact believe they were god's chosen people, and the fact their religious holidays and rules, which are many centuries old, are faithfully followed to this day should tell you how seriously they have been taken. When nations were conquered and the conquerors outlawed their religion, the conquered people often continued practicing their religion in secrecy, and even died rather than give it up.
Can I ask what makes you think the average individual in antiquity believed the Bible (or other sacred texts or doctrines) were a myth?

English is not my first language. If you think I am being mean, ask me. It could be just a wording problem.

So...your argument is that people who studied the bible in the past may not have believed it to be real and only believed it to be mythology? You justify your reasoning by saying that they did not understand concepts of "truth" and "validity" but you are saying that they understood what mythology meant? Any story in the bible can be viewed through their eyes but it does not make it true, then or now. I mean they were parables meant to teach lessons (some more respectable than others) but so are Disney Stories today (well some of them). Pinocchio aims to teach kids not to lie but he is not real, and that does not make the lesson any less valid. Other stories sought to explain natural disasters (earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, floods, plagues, etc) and they provided people with some explanation as to their cause but they were not true then or now. They simply did not have the tools or information to know that. Just because you grow up believing one thing to be true and die still believing it does not make it so. I mean the Greeks thought fossils of the squid-like organism the belemnite were petrified lighting bolts from Zeus, and people used to think that ammonites were petrified snakes without heads (some went as far as carving heads on them). They were dead wrong about them then and now. I can understand why they thought that since they had no way of telling with the information available to them but it did not make it true then.

(28-07-2011 07:01 PM)Bucky Ball Wrote: "The bible was a collection of legends and lore when it was written and was as real to the people who read it as the the news is to people who watch it today."
---- You SAY that, but offer no evidence for that. Maybe it wasn't. If it WAS "mythology", then you are wrong. (Which is why I suggested to you we don't try to refute Greek mythology. )

While I am sure there were people who doubted the lore of old (let's not forget that what we call "Bible" is just the written collection of oral tradition passed down for generations), it's fairly safe to say the people at the time on average believed their religions. If you think for example about the history of Jews, it's pretty obvious that they did in fact believe they were god's chosen people, and the fact their religious holidays and rules, which are many centuries old, are faithfully followed to this day should tell you how seriously they have been taken. When nations were conquered and the conquerors outlawed their religion, the conquered people often continued practicing their religion in secrecy, and even died rather than give it up.
Can I ask what makes you think the average individual in antiquity believed the Bible (or other sacred texts or doctrines) were a myth?

I guess I have done a really poor job of writing here, and I apologize. I didn't mean to imply that the peoples of old thought the bible was "mythology", just that they, living in a "magical" world, didn't understand it, in the way modern 21th Century people do. The scientific worldview arose much later, and there was no such thing as "fact", back then. (The 'average" individual in antiquity was illiterate, and took what he was told, without question.) Just as there was no concept of "fact" for them, there would have been no "mythology". They did not read the bible, because there was no written book available, and even if there were, they couldn't read anyway. The question, IMHO, would be, "What did the EDITORS of the texts think about what they were doing?", given that they were compiling various literary threads (see Elohist, Deuteronomist, Priestly, and Jahwist source theories, (and the even more interesting "K" source, (see also the "Book of J", Harold Bloom)). Obviously THEY knew they were creating a national "story" or "myth" which on some level they knew was not necessarily accurate, on a historical basis. What was important was the "national myth", ( and no one would have any way of verifying it anyway), back when they were compiling the traditions which make up the texts today.

In a different vein, I was wondering if anyone would care to comment on the following.
Many religious communities these days recite either the Apostle's Creed, or the Nicean Creed every Sunday. Since the Nicean Creed predated the Apostles Creed, by around 50-75 years, I will ask about that, and it says (in Latin):
"Et ex Patre natum ante ómnia sæcula. Deum de Deo, lumen de lúmine, Deum verum de Deo vero, génitum, non factum, consubstantiálem Patri"
((And) born of the Father before all ages. God FROM God, Light FROM light, true God FROM true God, BEGOTTEN, not made, one (consubstantial) being with the Father.)

There are there 4 temporally dependent concepts there. Light COMING from light, God COMING from god, being BEGOTTEN , ie the action of being begotten, (may have a questionable "temporal" implication, but if it was "begotten", then there was a TIME when it wasn't yet "begotten"), (and BTW, if it doesn't have the temporal implication, the word is meaningless), and BORN, another action which only has meaning if it is a PROCESS of "coming" into being, yet another act which "takes (some) time.

Space-TIME began (only) when the universe began, (in their world..was created). So how was it "doing" anything, (another TEMPORALLY dependent concept), before time began ? It's all philosophically inconsistent, and meaningless. All over the place, It is DOING things, which could only occur in TIME, which hadn't begun (been created) yet. And before that, did It just sit around and do nothing for eternity, until It got around to making the universe ? Stunningly inconsistent. No ?

Insufferable know-it-all. It is objectively immoral to kill innocent babies. Please stick to the guilty babies.

(28-07-2011 07:01 PM)Bucky Ball Wrote: "The bible was a collection of legends and lore when it was written and was as real to the people who read it as the the news is to people who watch it today."
---- You SAY that, but offer no evidence for that. Maybe it wasn't. If it WAS "mythology", then you are wrong. (Which is why I suggested to you we don't try to refute Greek mythology. )

While I am sure there were people who doubted the lore of old (let's not forget that what we call "Bible" is just the written collection of oral tradition passed down for generations), it's fairly safe to say the people at the time on average believed their religions. If you think for example about the history of Jews, it's pretty obvious that they did in fact believe they were god's chosen people, and the fact their religious holidays and rules, which are many centuries old, are faithfully followed to this day should tell you how seriously they have been taken. When nations were conquered and the conquerors outlawed their religion, the conquered people often continued practicing their religion in secrecy, and even died rather than give it up.
Can I ask what makes you think the average individual in antiquity believed the Bible (or other sacred texts or doctrines) were a myth?

I guess I have done a really poor job of writing here, and I apologize. I didn't mean to imply that the peoples of old thought the bible was "mythology", just that they, living in a "magical" world, didn't understand it, in the way modern 21th Century people do. The scientific worldview arose much later, and there was no such thing as "fact", back then. (The 'average" individual in antiquity was illiterate, and took what he was told, without question.) Just as there was no concept of "fact" for them, there would have been no "mythology". They did not read the bible, because there was no written book available, and even if there were, they couldn't read anyway. The question, IMHO, would be, "What did the EDITORS of the texts think about what they were doing?", given that they were compiling various literary threads (see Elohist, Deuteronomist, Priestly, and Jahwist source theories, (and the even more interesting "K" source, (see also the "Book of J", Harold Bloom)). Obviously THEY knew they were creating a national "story" or "myth" which on some level they knew was not necessarily accurate, on a historical basis. What was important was the "national myth", ( and no one would have any way of verifying it anyway), back when they were compiling the traditions which make up the texts today.

Ah now I understand, thank you so much for helping me out. Yes you are absolutely right, the concept of checking knowledge against facts is quite recent, started with the Renaissance and Galileo probably. In the older times, appeal to authority was usually all you needed, that is if your parents or the chief or the religious leader told you something, that was it. Nevertheless, I don't know that this alone is enough to say there was no mythology. For example, while the Greeks believed in Zeus & Co, I am pretty sure they didn't consider the Odyssey revealed truth, they knew or suspected that Ulysses didn't really exist, that Poseidon didn't get mad at him for eating his cows, etc. The Odyssey is probably invented to be "plausible" (for the times), that is people at the time did believe that if you angered the gods they'd mess you up, and had to go to great lengths to appease them, but whether they believed those specific things in the Odyssey actually happened, I doubt it.

English is not my first language. If you think I am being mean, ask me. It could be just a wording problem.